Category: Olympic Games

Facebook has announced a partnership with the Olympic Games in London 2012 at a press event at Facebook London today. The partnership is a big step on the way to monetize the social network and its fight against Google and Twitter. Although Facebook has 10 times more Page Views that YouTube, Facebook’s revenue is still only 10% of Google’s total revenue.

With the launch of “Explore London 2012” facebook has created a special landing page for all people interested in the olympic games. You can find an overview of all facebook fan pages of athletes, teams and sports and “like” them directly or jump to the fanpage to learn more.

When I read this blog post about how the IOC is building up pressure on photopraphers who publish Olympic pictures on Flickr, I was really shocked. It makes clear that the IOC is controlled by regulations, rights and its right-owners rather than by passion, emotion and equality which they say is the “spirit” of the Olympic Games.

So what happened: the IOC’s Legal Affairs department has send out letters to photographers, like Richard Giles, for hosting images of the Olympics on his Flickrstream. The IOC feels that this is a violation of the terms and conditions. Read the full story at Thomas Hawks blog.

So the IOC has taken a hammer and has smashed its own “olympic spirit”. The Olympic games are about experiencing and sharing emotions, passion and achievements. Thus social media should be in the centre of the strategy of the Olympic Commitee. The Blog of the Olympic Games in London 2012 is a small step in the right direction, but sadly was not initiated by IOC, it was the idea of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG).

I think somebody should tell the IOC about the Streissand Effect and how they are currently messing with the social media community, bloggers, twitterers and of course photographers. Sueing is not the right way to “control” social media. They need to accept the changes social media brings to the overall media environment and learn how to cope with these challenges.

Why not listen to what is said in Blogs, on Twitter, facebook etc. and create a strategy to activate the “power of social media”. If they don’t do so, the Olympic Games could become a historical relict, because the Net Generation does not care (and watch) the games anymore.

The IOC annouced the first “Blogging Guidelines” for the olympic games in Beijing. “The IOC considers blogging…as a legitimate form of personal expression and not a form of journalism,” the IOC said.

Here is the full news at ZDNet:
The International Olympic Committee on Friday gave the green light to allow blogging at the Olympics for the first time, issuing guidelines for this August’s Beijing Games.
Athletes have long demanded they be allowed to write their blogs–online journals of personal opinion or reflection–during the Games but the IOC was concerned these could potentially infringe on copyright agreements and private information.

In a series of guidelines, the IOC said blogging would be allowed during the Beijing 2008 Olympics as long as individuals writing the journals keep within the IOC format.Continue Reading..

Friday i have been to DÃ¼sseldorf and we met Mr. P. Diddy at the intercontinental Hotel. We did not realize it (i am not good in recognizing celebrities) but then we saw the line of Groupies in Front of the Hotel and started to think about the Person.

After almost three weeks of Beijing we will travel to Shanghai for further meetings and research.
In Shanghai we will visit the great Jin Mao Tower and the cool Hyatt Grand Hotel with its Lobby on the 54th floor and the bar at th 87th floor.

During a TrendTour at the End of 2006 we visited the Olympic Media Center in Beijing, China. Beijing is preparing for the Olympic Games in 2008 and our local Team is reporting about the newest developments to keep our customers on the pulse.

This is the Video with Interviews and Backgrounds about the preparations for the Olympic Games 2008 in Beijing.